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#BWCA

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Tina Smith introduces legislation to protect the Boundary Waters from sulfide mining.

smith.senate.gov/u-s-senator-t

*Reminder, Emmer/Stauber etal would like to allow fracking (rebranded under some long fancy language) here & at the headwaters of the Mississippi river.

Selling off MN natural resources to enrich themselves is corrupt fuckshit.

90% of MN residences & industries get their water from groundwater sources & wells.

Twin Metals = Antofagasta. Do look them up.

Senator Tina Smith · U.S. Senator Tina Smith Introduces Legislation to Protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from Sulfide Mining - Senator Tina SmithU.S. Senator Tina Smith introduced legislation that would protect the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness from the threat posed by sulfide mining in the surrounding watershed.
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About 2.5 miles down the trail, we started hitting downed trees across the path. Clearly, this was as far as trail clearing had gotten from this end after wind storms last summer/fall! We skirted a couple, then decided we'd had enough and turned back.

The return trip was more fun, following our own tracks, picking up speed on the downhills, but with still enough snow to keep speeds safe for everyone.

And one more species for the trip bird list: Boreal Chickadees! We heard their distinctive, wheezy "Sik-a-day-day!" call at one point, but not close enough to get photos.

5 miles wasn't as far as we'd expected to go, but with the extra effort breaking trail, it was exercise enough!

Back on the trail today! Winds have calmed, so out we went to break trail on the west end of the Banadad. We'd scouted that trailhead a couple days ago and saw it wasn't groomed, but someone had broken trail back before the latest snowfall. Not much had changed!

We decided to go with the X-C skis to follow in the tracks and let Zeena lead the way. She was happy to break trail!

While it was extra work to push through the snow, it wasn't nearly as bad as we've faced before...

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Here's Zeena enjoying a bit of a downhill run! The terrain is generally flat with easy hills here and there, especially on the east end.

We didn't specifically train the huskies to avoid the ski tracks: they just seemed to prefer it here. The well groomed sides helps.

When the snow is deeper and softer, they'll often walk in the ski tracks, as the firmest footing available. Which is fine, because we ski over and flatten out their footprints behind them!

Prejudice against skijoring, especially by trail groomers, is frustrating and sad, which is why we treasure the few dog-friendly trails we've found.

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It was quite notable how much easier it was to make distance today, compared to yesterday. The narrow X-C skis were fast, had more glide, and you didn't have to work nearly as hard to keep your skis pointed down the slot-car tracks.

We went twice as far today as we did yesterday, in almost exactly the same amount of time!

Tonttu did great too. Sometimes we wonder if he's not enjoying the long trips as much as our other huskies, but he definitely got in the groove today. He's not as fast and confident on the hills as Zeena, but kept a good pace and a tight lead the whole way.

We also tried Musher's Secret on the pups' paws today, which seemed to help: yesterday they'd both been stopping to chew snow out of their toes, which seemed more bothersome than our huskies have experienced before.

Today we picked up the pace, with proper skijoring on Nordic/X-C skis and a groomed traditional/diagonal track. This is the east end of the Banadad Trail, one of the few dog-friendly groomed trails in the region, and consists of a single track, 27km one way through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (Normally no powered vehicles are allowed in the BWCA, but the trail has a special permit for grooming with a snowmobile.)

Zeena was especially happy to be going along at a good clip, compared to yesterday's shuffle. We were taking an appropriate Siberian Husky pace, apparently!

We did 5.25 miles in from the east end of the trail, and then 5.25 mi back, which was plenty for all of us today!

banadad.org